NEWPORT BEACH : Teacher on (Surf) Board of Education

It was the summer of ’72 when Scott Morlan first began teaching kids to surf off Newport Beach, and it was a summer of magic.

Employed by the Orange Coast YMCA, he persuaded his boss to offer surfing lessons for youngsters who spent their days at the club while their parents worked.

With an “old, funky” Ford Econoline van filled with donated boards and boys 10 to 14 years old, Morlan began a daily search for surf. From Doheny to Bolsa Chica, wherever there were swells, Morlan held his classes.

Days were spent on the ocean and nights were lost watching surf movies. It was a special summer, he says.

“They became a real tight little group of guys.”

As he describes it, the adventure provided the youngsters with, at least, a temporary focus and, at best, a lifelong love of the sport. For Morlan the season offered enduring memories.

“There was a bit of magic to the whole summer,” he said. “They learned to surf, but I learned a lot about kids and their feelings and where you’re coming from when you’re 13 years old.”

Those students have grown and married, and Morlan has become a teacher at El Rancho Middle School in Anaheim Hills. But surfing is still a constant in the life of the 41-year-old Costa Mesa resident, who now has three children of his own.

Recently, Morlan, who has taught off and on for the city of Newport Beach since the early ‘70s, began instructing his first class for the season off the Balboa Peninsula. During the summer, he holds weeklong classes, “the cushiest job in the entire world,” he said. His goal is to have the student--whether 7 years old or 60--standing on a surfboard by the end of a week.

“They’re just as pleased as punch when they do get up,” he said.

Morlan said he also tries to teach respect for the ocean and to give students a positive first experience with what can be a lifetime sport.

His love affair with the ocean “started a long time ago,” he said, “and I don’t intend to stop any time soon.”

In fact, he belongs to a group of surfers who call themselves Blackie’s Classics. The group consists of about 100 surfers who began riding the waves in the 1950s and ‘60s, Morlan said.

The ocean, he said, holds fascinations for anyone regardless of age.

Last year, Morlan was teaching a class when dolphins appeared and caught a wave as the students watched.

“Talk about exciting,” he said. “The old guys and the kids are just beside themselves when this kind of thing happens in the water.”

“The magic of surfing is hard to get across,” he said. “I’ve skied and I’ve done a lot of things. The other things are neat, but that is magical.”